chapter Seven
LOVE BITES, LOVE BLEEDS
DRAKE hesitated just slightly before he opened the door. He wasn’t scared about the alligator for himself. Shit, he was a vampire. He could take his knocks, even from a wannabe dinosaur. But Josie Lynn was another story. Being human, one bite could be fatal. And that scared him. A lot.
More than he really understood, actually. Sure, he wouldn’t want to see anyone maimed and killed by an alligator, but the idea of Cupcake getting hurt. That really bothered him.
Because you want to see her brought to justice in a way Captain Morgan never had been, he told himself. This was about a lying woman getting what she deserved. This was about comeuppance.
Or so he would tell himself.
Slowly he opened the door, and there Waldo lay, his back to them, looking more like a stuffed gator than the real McCoy. Unfortunately he was dead center in the hallway, making it hard to stay to one side of him. They were going to have to get pretty damn close to him to make it past.
So that meant one thing; he was going to have to go first. That way if Waldo decided to go all prehistoric, he’d hopefully attack Drake first, while Josie Lynn fled to safety.
“Follow me,” he said, whispering, though he wasn’t sure why. Did alligators even have ears?
“Maybe I should go first,” Josie Lynn suggested, and Drake shot her an astonished look. Was she crazy? That would be like sending old Waldo an appetizer.
“No way.” He stepped out the door, staying to the left of the hallway, since that seemed to be the side with the most space between the wall and the animal. He walked carefully, being as quiet as he could. Which was very quiet. That whole vampire thing.
Behind him Josie Lynn was being quiet, too, although he could hear the soft pats of her feet on the bare wood. He just hoped his vampire hearing was more acute than the alligator’s.
Once he reached the beast, he debated where the best place to step was. It was like a bizarre game of Twister, except in this game if you didn’t pick the right spot, you didn’t collapse into a tangled pile of limbs and laughter. In this game, you just lost a limb.
He carefully took a step over the curve of the gator’s tail. Then another over his back leg. So far, so good. Waldo hadn’t even twitched. He took another small step, bringing him up to Waldo’s front leg. At this point the best bet seemed to be to quickly step over that front leg, then run as fast as possible past his head and the long snout.
He looked over his shoulder to tell Josie Lynn his strategy, and that was the exact moment he heard the swish of Waldo’s scaly skin on the floor and a noise that was somewhere between a snarl and a hiss.
Then Drake was on the floor right beside the beast. Shit, the damn thing had swung its head and knocked him down. Now he was right near that huge mouth, stuck between the animal’s side and the wall.
He lay still for a second, debating at this angle if he could shove himself backward fast enough to avoid those teeth. His vampire abilities made him very fast, but this was a weird position.
But before he could do anything, Josie Lynn was on top of the gator, her bare legs straddling its back. She lay down on the beast, pressing both her forearms down as hard as she could on the alligator’s snout.
“What the hell are you doing?” he cried.
“Shut up,” she yelled back. “Take this cord and wrap it around his snout.”
Drake didn’t argue, taking the bungee cord from her and circling it quickly around the alligator’s long nose and mouth.
“Higher up,” she said, still using all her strength to keep his huge jaws shut. “That’s it.”
When it was secured, Josie Lynn sat up, still straddling the beast, her legs bare and her coffee-colored hair tangled around her face. Her chest rose and fell as she struggled to catch her breath.
Holy shit, she was sexy.
His dick shot straight up against his stomach, painfully hard and swollen, but fortunately she didn’t seem to notice.
“How—how the hell did you learn to do that?” he asked, struggling to catch his own breath.
She smiled then, the first time he’d seen her genuinely smile.
“I’m Cajun. This is what we do.”
Damn, he was in love.
* * *
JOHNNY WAS PUSHING his luck, and he knew it. But Lizette looked so disheveled and sexy that he couldn’t resist. Besides, the fact that she had said she wasn’t wearing panties had him hard in two seconds. All he could think was that his dick was currently so close to her pantyless deliciousness, and all it would take was a little tug of her skirt and he’d give her something she wouldn’t forget this time. He could take her wrist that was attached to his, raise it above her head on the hot pink wall behind her, and make her sore all over again in the best way possible.
Before he could do something that would get him slapped though, there was a knock on the door, causing Lizette to jerk away. “Yeah?” he called out.
Drake opened the door. “I thought I’d see if I could borrow some pants from Zelda.”
“Please do.” There was just far too much of Drake hanging around lately. “Where is the alligator? Is it watching TV or something?”
“Josie Lynn tied off his snout. She’s Cajun,” he said, like that explained everything. “She made it look easy, and basically made you look like a *.”
Great. “I was trying not to show off.” He turned back to Lizette. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Is Zelda awake yet?”
“No, but she’s definitely breathing. And just so you know, I don’t think Katie and Stella came bearing metal cutters.”
Johnny hadn’t really thought they would. They were undead musicians; they had stuff like guitar picks and guitar strings, drumsticks and plasma bags lying around, not tools designed to slice through metal. Although it might not be a bad idea to get some, given how this evening was going.
“Still no word from Saxon?” Drake asked
“Nope. Keep in touch, man. Somebody let me know how Zelda is doing and I’ll let you know if I find Saxon.” Normally Johnny would have clapped Drake on the back or something as he passed, but he’d just as soon keep his hands to himself at the moment.
Heading into the hallway, he glanced back toward the dungeon and was amazed to see that the alligator was on a leash hooked to the bathroom doorknob, his snout tied shut with the bungee cord from the sex swing. Josie Lynn was tossing her hair back and tugging Drake’s pirate shirt down toward her knees.
Wow. Impressive. He waved and continued in the opposite direction. He had to say, he was done with the freak factor for the night. He just wanted to find Saxon, make sure the little idiot was okay, and go home to his apartment that he wasn’t allowed to go home to. Damn it. This was going to be a long night, and he was really starting to be confused about his feelings toward Lizette. He alternated between extreme irritation and total horniness. Maybe the night before would work in his favor though. She had seemed really embarrassed by what happened, so maybe she wouldn’t argue if he said he wanted to go home. After they separated their cuffs, that is.
When they stepped out the front door of Zelda’s and paused on her front stoop, he realized Lizette was very quiet again, her lips pursed, bag clutched tightly against her chest.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just looked in my purse.”
“Yeah?” Johnny couldn’t even imagine what would put that look on her face. Actually, he could think of a lot of things, each more bizarre than the last, starting with dildos and ending with sherbet vomit.
She opened it up for him to see and he to admit, he was a little surprised. There was a thick stack of dollar bills. “I take it you didn’t have those before last night?”
“No! There must be several hundred dollars in small bills in here. Where did I get those from?”
He couldn’t even begin to guess. “I have no idea.” It was then he realized that the back of her shirt was darker than the front. “Hey, turn a little bit for me.” He studied the spot and realized that was why he was feeling so thirsty. Lizette had dried blood on her shirt.
“What, what is it?”
Crap. She wasn’t going to like this. “You have blood on the back of your shirt. A lot of it.”
“That’s why I keep smelling blood. I thought it was just Josie Lynn.”
“Huh.” Because really, what else could he say? “It’s only a couple of blocks to Saxon’s. Hopefully he just got cold feet last night or forgot where Zelda lived or something.”
“How could he forget where his fiancée lives?”
“Trust me, Saxon could.”
She bit her lip. “I’m going to call Dieter. Maybe he knows what happened last night.”
“Who is Dieter?” Johnny asked, even though he knew exactly who her beefcake assistant was. He just wanted to hear her say yet again that her relationship with him was strictly platonic.
“My assistant.”
“He has a thing for you,” Johnny told her, just to hear her protest, and because he was suddenly feeling particularly ornery.
“He does not!” Lizette actually starting walking faster than him, like she could walk ahead of his questions, even though she had no idea which direction they were going in.
A sudden thought occurred to Johnny, one he had to say he didn’t like at all. “How do you know it’s me you had sex with? I mean, we don’t know how long we’ve been handcuffed together.” Maybe he hadn’t had sex at all. Maybe that’s why he felt such an urgent need to hump Lizette. Maybe he’d been blue-balled. No. He couldn’t believe it. He’d made her come three times. That was the only story he was willing to believe.
Apparently Lizette agreed with him on that because she stopped walking, turned around, and slapped him.
Holy crap. His head snapped back and he stared at her, stunned, cheekbone aching. She had some force behind those little hands. “What the hell was that for?” He could honestly say he’d never been slapped before in his whole life. Not even by Bambi, and she had been hot tempered. He had assumed slapping was reserved for eighties soap operas and Tom and Jerry episodes.
It was kind of hot, he had to admit.
“For calling me a slut!” she said hotly, eyes flashing, mouth trembling with rage.
Whoa now. “I did not call you . . . that. I was just saying that maybe we were making an assumption, that we don’t know for sure what happened.”
“Why, are you horrified at the mere thought of having slept with me?”
Ninety-some years alive and he still couldn’t figure out women. Why would she get a stupid idea like that? “Of course not! I’m fascinated at the idea that we might have had sex. It just seems like the last way things would have turned out last night. You know, since we get along so well. But the very idea of seeing you naked and kissing your cherry lips has me totally hard.” And just to prove his point, he brought her hand with his and ground it onto his cock, which was starting to feel like a rattling pressure cooker.
“Oh! Mon dieu!”
“He’s got nothing to do with it,” Johnny assured her.
Lizette made a sound of exasperation, yanked her hand away, then whirled back around and started walking, muttering in French and dragging Johnny along with her.
He had no idea what she was saying, but he could guess it was filled with name-calling and her affronted dignity. “You’re going the wrong way,” he pointed out. “We need to turn left here.”
She practically hissed at him, then followed it up with more rapid-fire French. But she did turn left.
“It’s not my fault I don’t remember,” he told her, because he was feeling a little bitter about that. “I wish I did, trust me. And just for the record, I would be jealous if you slept with someone else.” It was true, and he figured it would win him points. Women liked jealous guys, didn’t they? They did in movies, anyways.
Johnny walked down Dumaine and pondered how it was that he’d never really understood women. His relationships such as they were had been like origami, full of little folds, then when he tugged one piece the whole thing collapsed. Here it was happening already with Lizette and he wasn’t even sure he actually liked her. He was pretty damn sure she didn’t like him.
He really hadn’t been passing judgment, but he knew he was right; they had no way of knowing if they’d really had sex. If she had banged someone else, well, she had been out of her mind. Hell, if she had banged him she had clearly been out of her mind. Not drugged, he was 100 percent positive she would not have come near him. He wouldn’t have hit on her sober either. Because he would have gotten slapped.
Johnny worked his jaw and fought the urge to grin. Yeah, she was hot, there was no doubt about it. The uptight paper-pusher had a fiery side, and he couldn’t help but want to explore that side of her.
Lizette had dug her phone out and was speaking into it in French, which made Johnny wonder if it was Dieter, because he could have sworn her assistant was German, but then again, what did he know? Besides, Germans probably spoke French. He was starting to feel like a real potato farmer next to her, which was stupid. He was a musician and chicks everywhere dug that. He wasn’t a loser. Even if he was walking behind her, attached to her like a disobedient dog.
The submissive lifestyle wasn’t for him, he had to say. He was happy for Saxon if that was his thing, but Johnny didn’t like to take orders. He liked to coax and tease and charm his way to get what he wanted. What he wanted right now was Lizette, naked, below him, quivering, her plump lips parted.
“Hey, brother, what’s up?” A man on the corner of St. Philip and Bourbon Street outside of Lafitte’s gave him a wave and a friendly smile. “Where’s your bucket tonight? My wife loved the picture of her with you guys.”
Okay. What picture might that be? And why the hell would he have a bucket? Johnny figured this was a good opportunity to gather some information. He touched Lizette’s arm so she would stop marching down the street. “That’s awesome. I’d love to see it if you have it on your phone.”
“Sure, sure, no problem.” The guy was wearing a golf shirt with large sweat stains in both pits, and he wiped his forehead with a hankie. “I’ll tell you, it’s hot out here. Okay, let me pull it up on my phone. The wife is inside having a hurricane. Little hair of the dog, if you know what I mean.”
Johnny smiled back at him. “That sounds about right for a Saturday night in New Orleans. Hope you’re having a good trip.”
“Oh, the best, absolutely the best.” He glanced at Lizette, who had turned her head and was still on her cell phone. “I’ll tell ya, you’re a lucky son of a gun. Your girlfriend is beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Johnny felt a ridiculous sense of pride, even though Lizette didn’t belong to him in any way.
“Here it is.” The man turned his camera and showed Johnny the image on the screen. “It was so real. My wife loved it!”
Holy fuck. Lizette was going to birth a cow. Johnny tried not to react, but it was hard not to at least go a little buggy-eyed as he stared at the picture of him biting Lizette’s neck, her eyes rolled back in ecstasy, blood trailing down the back of her shirt. The tourist’s wife was standing next to them grinning and pointing. Lizette was perched on a bucket, and in front of them was a pile of money on the street. Oh God, they had been charging tourists cash to watch him suck her blood.
“That is a great shot,” he told the man with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
“How do you get the blood so realistic? I could swear it even smelled like blood.”
Johnny gave him a shaky smile and a wink. “Trade secret, buddy. Can’t give that away or we’ll be out of business.”
The tourist laughed. “Sure, sure, I understand. You want me to send you a copy of this picture? I can shoot it to you in an email.”
“Great, thanks.” Johnny gave him The Impalers email address and debated if he could get away with never telling Lizette about this. Ever. But he wasn’t about to turn down a copy of that picture. It was intensely erotic and he wanted to blow it up and study Lizette’s expression alone in a dark room.
“I’m Mike, by the way.”
Johnny exchanged a few more pleasantries with Mike, then said good-bye as the guy headed back into the bar to find his wife, probably excited to tell her that he had seen the fake vampires again. Little did he know.
Lizette put her phone away. “Who was that?”
Johnny wrestled for a few seconds, a little afraid of the fallout if he told her the truth. Yet he knew if she found out later she would decapitate him for not telling her. He kind of liked his head right where it was, so he cleared his throat as they started walking again and gave her a smile. He’d just ease into it. “Was that Dieter? Does he know anything?”
“No, that was his Parisian assistant.”
“Your assistant has an assistant?”
“Oui. So what is going on? Who was that man?”
There was no way out of it so he bit the bullet and tried to sound charming. “Well, the good news is I know where you got all that cash from and it wasn’t from stripping, if that’s what you were worried about.”
“Of course not!” she said, but she sounded relieved. “How did I get it?”
“It seems we set ourselves up on Bourbon Street with a bucket. You know, like the living statues who paint themselves silver or like a ghost and stand there and don’t move while people take their picture. They have a donation bucket out. Apparently we put out a donation bucket.”
Lizette gave him a look of bemused bewilderment. “Why would people pay to see us standing there? I doubt either one of us is that interesting standing on a bucket.”
“Speak for yourself,” he teased. “But um, well, the thing is . . . we seemed to be reenacting a vampire bite.” Reenacting. Actually doing it. Almost the same thing.
“What? What do you mean? Like how?”
“You know, like my fangs on your neck. Breaking your skin. Sucking whatever blood didn’t run down your shirt. You know. Like that.” Johnny braced himself for a second slap.
Fortunately, she appeared too stunned to even consider it. “Why would you do that? Are you insane?”
“I don’t know! Maybe we needed cab fare. You did freeze my assets.” He wasn’t going to take the full blame for this either. He dug out his phone to see if Mike had emailed him the picture yet. “Besides, you looked like you were enjoying yourself.” She did. So there.
“I highly doubt that!” she said with extreme indignation.
Thank God for technology and Mike’s eagerness. “Ha! Look at this!” Johnny shoved the image in her face. “Tell me you’re not enjoying that.”
She so clearly was, it made him horny all over again, if he had ever actually stopped. The way her head was thrown back in complete abandon, her eyes half-closed, tongue out on her bottom lip. It was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.
Lizette grabbed his phone and stared closer. Then the phone tumbled out of her hand down onto the sidewalk. “That isn’t me. That can’t be me. I would never . . . I couldn’t . . . it’s not possible . . .” Her voice trailed off, her eyes glazed, her free hand fluttered aimlessly over her chest.
After rescuing his phone and making sure it still worked despite the screen kissing the concrete, he eyeballed her, a little worried at her tone. “Do you need to stick your head between your legs or something?”
“Excuse me? How dare you!”
Maybe that didn’t sound right. “I don’t want you fainting!”
But Lizette was tugging at their attached wrists. “I want this thing off of me right now! I want away from you. I want to leave this street, this city, and go back to Paris.”
People were stopping to stare at them. Johnny gave the observers a casual smile. “She’s drunk,” he told them.
“I am not drunk!” She whacked his arm with her giant purse.
“Look, we’re home,” he told her, pointing to the door that led up to Saxon’s second-floor apartment. “Maybe we can talk about this inside. You know, away from total strangers.”
“As if it matters! After last night, apparently there is nothing left to hide!”
Yeah, she was flipping her wig. Johnny debated calling Stella or Dieter for backup, but Stella was busy with Zelda and he hated Dieter, purely on principle. He was on his own. “Lizette, obviously nothing bad happened last night, because we’re still here. No one is in jail or in a science lab, so let’s just go inside and keep it that way, okay?”
“Oh, now you are so reasonable?”
She was fairly quivering with indignation, and she was so tiny and cute that Johnny couldn’t help himself. He bent over and kissed the tip of her petite nose. “Yes. I’m being reasonable, so we should probably make note of this. It doesn’t happen all that often.”
His kiss rendered her speechless. She blinked up at him, eyes wide, mouth open, anger deflated. She murmured something in French.
“I know,” he told her soothingly. At some point he probably needed to confess that he didn’t speak French, but so far, it didn’t seem to matter. The extent of their conversations was about how he was screwing up and her fears of exposure. All he really needed to do was agree.
The nosy partiers had lost interest and had kept walking, so he took her hand, the one attached to his, and held it like they were teen lovers. It felt oddly comforting, and made the handcuffs irrelevant. He held open the door for her and led her into the courtyard. Up some groaning wooden steps and they were at Saxon’s front door. His apartment was essentially just a long narrow room, originally slaves’ quarters to the town house facing Dumaine. It was perfect for a vampire who didn’t want a lot of natural light, but it was too small for Johnny. He felt claustrophobic inside it, and the feeling immediately came over him as he pushed open the door.
“It isn’t locked?”
“Nah. Saxon doesn’t have much to steal and he could defend himself. He may look like a twelve-year-old girl, but he is an immortal.”
“That’s true.” Lizette looked around. “Well, obviously he is not here.”
“Yeah.” Johnny frowned at the empty room. “I am starting to get a little worried. I mean, I could see him coming back here to sleep or get some stuff, but where else would he be on his own wedding night? Everyone wants booty on their wedding night.”
“I think everyone got booty but him.”
Johnny laughed. “It was definitely a wedding to remember. Except no one remembers it.” He went over to Saxon’s tiny fridge. “Want a drink?” There was blood in there, and suddenly Johnny just wanted a drink and a cigarette. But he had quit smoking, so he would have to settle for a glass of red.
“I think perhaps that would be wise.” Then Lizette surprised him by opening her purse and pulling out the wad of cash. “I suppose we should split this, yes? I believe you earned it.”
Johnny grinned, but as he poured them both a drink into jelly jars from Saxon’s cupboard, he wondered if her thoughts were taking the same turn his were—straight back to the image of him biting her neck and drawing her blood into his mouth.
He wanted to bite her again. Now.
“Don’t even think about it,” she told him, proving that not only was she adorable, she could read minds as well.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he lied.